Signage and Graphics Meaning, Significance, Concept of Digital Signage

Retail Store Signage Design refers to any kind of visual store graphics that you have that displays information to your customers about your business and your products. Signage for retail stores can vary in form and size based on location and intent, but whether it be an expansive banner or a billboard, they all have the same purpose to drive foot traffic to you and communicate with your customers. From your store front, to banners, to barricades and every piece of your retail store signage. Your signage design is a vital part of your business. It will be the first impression that many customers have of you and is one of the most important sales tools that you have.

Exterior Retail Store Signage

Exterior signage is arguably the most important kind in physical retail because it is what gets customers through the door. A new customer will have less faith in a business whose signage has burned out bulbs, flickering neon or peeling paint. As opposed to your direct competitor across the street who has an eye-catching storefront that looks fresh and up-to-date at all times. Your retail space should be a physical representation of your brand and can create eye catching retail store signage that speaks to your target customer and gets that foot traffic through the door.

Interior Retail Store Signage

Your interior signage however, is all about getting them to purchase and should have a more focused intention. This and can create a range of retail interior graphics and POPs that is eye-catching and true to your brand. Purposeful signs directing customers to a certain location or explaining where the dressing rooms are need to be clear and easily understood. Whereas persuasive signs pointing customers to look towards certain products they might not have noticed or a sale that you have on can be a bit more fun and creative. National retail executives will tell you that an effective point-of-purchase sign can influence up to 85% of purchases in a store. Also, major brand producers will pay substantial amounts to a storeowner to acquire this space.

If you want a customer to slow down at any point you can use retail store signage that employs humour or a play on words that make people stop and think. When someone pauses to read a sign and chuckle or share it with a friend, you’ve got a better chance of them seeing the products close by and making a sale.

Significance:

Differentiation: A good custom business signage will help differentiate your business from the competition. It will help you build a unique and eye-catching brand in the eyes of potential customers. To make the effective use of signage, you need to know how to design effective and beautiful signs or else, you will lose all the potentials of a signage.

Increasing brand exposure: Getting a good business signage will improve the visibility of your company and make it stand out from the crowd. It will boost your chances of getting new customers and repeated business with current customers.

It is cost-effective: One of the most cost-effective marketing strategies to boost sales is signage. The only cost is the initial investment and once your signage is ready and installed, there are no maintenance or other costs and it will advertise your company 24/7.

For directions to potential customers: Signage is necessary for vast locations such as corporations, shopping malls, and hospitals. The use of these signs helps to prevent customers or visitors from getting lost. This will help to prevent a situation that could lead to bad sales. This signage is mostly useful for large outdoor events such as festivals or companies with multiple buildings or entrances.

Year-round advertising: Depending on where you installed your signage, whether interior or exterior, signage will work for you all year round. They are visible and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. This is why they are a worthy investment; they require no maintenance effort, no matter the time or day of the year.

Entice customers: Shop signage can attract business to a company (both inside and out) when they have good designs. Signage placed outside can be successful at creating curiosity and it will encourage customers to patronize us.

Concept of Digital Signage

Digital signage is a sub-segment of electronic signage. Digital displays use technologies such as LCD, LED, projection and e-paper to display digital images, video, web pages, weather data, restaurant menus, or text. They can be found in public spaces, transportation systems, museums, stadiums, retail stores, hotels, restaurants and corporate buildings etc., to provide wayfinding, exhibitions, marketing and outdoor advertising. They are used as a network of electronic displays that are centrally managed and individually addressable for the display of text, animated or video messages for advertising, information, entertainment and merchandising to targeted audiences.

Roles and function

The many different uses of digital signage allow a business to accomplish a variety of goals. Some of the most common applications include:

• Public information: News, weather, traffic and local (location specific) information, such as building directory with a map, fire exits and traveler information.
• Internal information: Corporate messages, such as health & safety items, news and so forth.
• Product information Pricing, photos, raw materials or ingredients, suggested applications and other product information; especially useful in food marketing where signage may include nutritional facts or suggested uses or recipes.
• Information to enhance the customer service experience: Interpretive signage in museums, galleries, zoos, parks and gardens, exhibitions, tourist and cultural attractions.
• Advertising and Promotion: Promoting products or services, may be related to the location of the sign or using the screen’s audience reach for general advertising.
• Brand building: In-store digital sign to promote the brand and build a brand identity.
• Influencing customer behavior: Navigation, directing customers to different areas, increasing the “dwell time” on the store premises and a wide range of other uses in service of such influence.
• Influencing product or brand decision-making: Signage at the point of sale designed to influence choice e.g. Signage to help shoppers to choose dresses inside a fashion store or devices that on a computerized shopping trolley helping the customer locate products, check prices, access product information and manage shopping lists.
• Enhancing customer experience: applications include the reduction of perceived wait time in the waiting areas of restaurants and other retail operations, bank queues, and similar circumstances, as well as demonstrations, such as those of recipes in food stores, among other examples.
• Navigation: With interactive screens (in the floor, for example, as with “informational footsteps” found in some tourist attractions, museums and the like) or with other means of “dynamic wayfinding”.
• Reservations: Small, interactive screens on walls or desks that allow employees to reserve the space for a limited time and integrate with a room and resource scheduling platform.

Various different industries

Restaurants

Digital signage is used in restaurants through an interactive menu screen that rotates promotional offers. Restaurants use digital signage both indoors and outdoors, with the latter needing a form of weather protection depending on the components of the hardware. Outdoor usage of digital signage is most prevalent in drive-through that allows the customer to browse through the entire menu at a glance while also placing their order with an interactive touchscreen. Indoor digital signage is used for the display of menus. Prior to the integration of digital signage, restaurants manually updated the cafeteria menu, which is in itself a full-time job, especially if the menu is updated daily. With digital signage, restaurants do not have to manually update the menu feed, with live menu feed from digital signage solutions. According to a survey conducted by quick-service restaurants and casual restaurant operators, over 20% of restaurant operators experience a 5% sales lift after incorporating digital signage in their service sectors.

Shopping malls

Digital signage is widely used in shopping malls as a form of directory or map display. Uses of digital signage include a wayfinding kiosk, enabling the customer to find their path through an interactive touchscreen. Recent digital signage have begun combining interactive advertisement with wayfinding application. This will offer shoppers who interact with the advertisement of the tenant in the shopping mall to the store. Another usage is disseminating relevant information such as the schedule of an event or campaign.

Hospitality

The hospitality industry uses digital signage to display crucial information at a convenient and visible location for all its patron. A digital signage is capable of functioning as a virtual concierge in hotels and as entertainment for conferences during waiting room. Digital signage is also used in hotels as a form of wayfinding, to guide a large group of people for a conference to the correct room. Digital signage is used to provide a simple method to update information that is continuously changing such as expo information.

Cinema

Digital signage is placed in the lobby, concession stands and displays advertisement before the movie begins. This informs customers about other theatre offerings and scheduling, increasing concession sales and gaining other sources of revenue.

Transport

Transport is a growing sector for digital signage with practical solutions, such as wayfinding, as well as out-of-home advertising.

Personalized digital content

One specific use of digital signage is for out-of-home advertising in which video content, advertisements, and/or messages are displayed on digital signs with the goal of delivering targeted messages, to specific locations and/or consumers, at specific times. This is often called “digital out of home” (DOOH).

Education

Digital signage can be used for school cafeteria menu boards, digitized noticeboards, and as an element of smart campuses. The University of Minnesota has installed 300 digital signage boards, updated with real-time data.